MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

7/3 The streak

Once again, one bad inning hurt Chris Volstad, and once again, he lost. Volstad took the loss Tuesday in the Cubs’ 10-3 loss to the Braves. He has not won in his last 20 starts. This was Volstad’s first start after a mid-May demotion to Triple-A Iowa.

“I think it’s a matter of me trying to be perfect and too fine and trying to be better than I have to be,” he said. “Nobody’s perfect, so how can I expect myself to be? I need to relax and throw pitches like I had in innings one, two, three, four.”

Volstad (0-7) gave up six runs on seven hits over 4 1/3 innings. He has not won since July 10, 2011, nearly a full calendar year, and is 0-12 with a 5.68 ERA in the 20 starts. If Volstad stays on schedule, he’ll have one more chance for a “W” before the All-Star break on Sunday against the Mets.

“Not much has changed, obviously,” Dale Sveum said. “It was another big inning. There was still some hard contact going on before that [inning] and his stuff and location wasn’t all that good anyway. The ball wasn’t down. It didn’t seem as if anything was sinking very good. He didn’t pitch to the game plan either. That was a little bit discouraging, too. He shook [catcher Steve Clevenger] off a lot for some reason. Another combination of a lot of things he’s got to learn to work on.”

Was Volstad disagreeing with his catcher?

“Not really,” Volstad said. “I think I shook more in the other innings than in the fifth. For the most part, we were right there on the same page. A couple one or two, here or there.”

Volstad looked good in the first four innings.

“I think it’s just a matter of attacking, attacking the zone,” Volstad said. “You see what I can do when I do that — four innings of two hits and one run.”

5 Comments

So in the last paragraph, Volsted states: I THINK its just a matter of attacking the strike zone. Do you THINK?
If someone, anyone could just get through to the whole pitching staff, thats the key.
Please stop walking people, please. They walk pitchers and everyone else. Start before last Shark walked 5 guys against the Mets. The Cubs lose the game as every walk scored. Last game Shark walks one and pitches a very good game.
T Wood has done well when he dont walk hitters.
Its frustrating as a fan, when you see guys making huge salaries, yet they cant throw strikes.

I love it when you hear comments on the post game show that Volstad lost his “confidence”…really? What made him lose confidence after pitching 3 great innings? Did somebody tell him he really isn’t that good and he will now suck the rest of the game? DUH. He didn’t lose “confidence” he lost control, command and maybe just maybe a liiiiiiiiiiiiitle bit of talent????

i’m guessing volstad gets one last start to turn it around. even though there isn’t much other choice at this point, i don’t think sveum and epstein’s patience is limitless. randy wells seems to have worn out his welcome, and volstad is one more typical volstad start away from wearing out his. in the deals soon to come, it’s a foregone conclusion that epstein will be looking for impact pitching prospects in return for dempster/garza/malholm,etc., as the farm system is already in quite good shape w/r/t position players. because they’ll be losing dempster and possibly garza soon, epstein figures to need to get 2-3 guys who are ready to be thrown in there now, to complement F7 (smardzija) and wood. whether he can do it or not will more or less dictate the early grading on his first year as cubs president.
at least that’s how i see it…

Your article headline stated “slump”. O for 20 as a pitcher isn’t a slump, it’s reality. slumps are temporary and dont’ generally reflect a player’s abilities. A guy that hasn’t won in a year with an ERA in the SAT range isn’t in a slump, he’s just not good.

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